TRENTON — Rutgers University has declined a request from Gov. Chris Christie’s administration to be the lone grower of New Jersey’s medical marijuana crop because the drug’s illegal status would jeopardize millions of dollars in federal funding, the dean of the biological school said today.

Robert Goodman, dean of the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, said almost every aspect of the school’s business – from providing financial aid, to obtaining research grants, to seeking immigration visas for visiting professors and other guests – is tied up in federal funding.

Possession, sale and use of marijuana remains a federal offense, regardless of New Jersey’s and 13 other state’s laws permitting medical marijuana to be sold.

“Higher education is infinitely tied to the federal government, operating under the presumption we are not violating federal law,’’ said Goodman, also the executive director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. “We were sincerely interested in the opportunity, but we had external counsel and our folks look into it and yesterday it became totally clear we could not do this.’’

The Christie administration was counting on Rutgers to be the sole grower and a number of teaching hospitals to be the only sellers as a counter proposal to the law that passed before he became governor that would allow up to six nonprofits to provide and distribute the drug.

Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), a sponsor of the law, said he expects hospitals would confront the same legal dilemma.

"Now, the state should turn its attention to implementing my original plan, which was well thought out and responsible, allowing the private sector to be involved,’’ Scutari said.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), who also sponsored the medical marijuana bill, said he was very disappointed Rutgers took such a "narrow-minded view" and did not accept the governor's challenge.

"Rutgers chickened out," Gusciora said.

"Here you had a perfect fit," with the university's many farms, its expertise in crop research, and a governor willing to back up the university, Gusciora said.
"We could have asked our congressional delegation to write letters" to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the federal agency whose permission would have been necessary to allow research and other uses of the illegal drug.

The University of Mississippi is the only higher education institution that has the DEA's approval to perform marijuana research. President George W. Bush's administration denied a request by a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to become another research site.

Gusciora said he expects the health department to implement the law he co-authored, allowing six nonprofits to grow and sell to registered patients.

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